Wasting the Light
by Oldwickedsongs
Summary: Pre-series A brief snapshot of Rupert Giles returning home to embrace the destiny he abandoned- and wondering if that is even possible now.


Disclaimer: I am very new to the series, so forgive me if I get something wrong. None of the characters are mine I am just borrowing. Read and review?****

**Wasting the Light **

Strange.

Everything was strange, from the feeling to the sight of it even though he knew in the back of his mind that he wasn't being rational. Of course nothing had changed in the years that had passed, nothing important at least. Trees were older, and higher and a few houses had new paint but it was still the quiet little hamlet it had always been, the same looming trees; the same stifling air.

Nothing was different as truly as everything was; and of course, if he tried to be rational as he was taught, to explore every angle of his observation (because it was not a judgment, he had learned at a very young age his destiny in life would not be to judge but merely observe- a life of study and gathering) Rupert Giles would have considered the chance that it was not the world that had changed but himself.

He was murderer now, after all. That had to count for something.

Somewhere in the middle of swallowing his nausea down, readjusting his knapsack and just feeling the strong impulse to find some dark hole and die there; Giles remembered the crystal goblets in the dining room.

His family was comfortable, but by no means wealthy. Watchers did not care for monetary gain, or trappings of office but that was only true in with the individuals; as a whole council, Rupert had never met a more pigheaded, wasteful, pretension sort in his life. He would admit, readily to anyone who asked, that he had a somewhat sheltered life.

Well, shelter as he had never known want, not sheltered in the fact that since Rupert was ten he could never enter a public place without making sure he knew the exits, that occasionally his mother and he were ushered out of the city for fear of reprisals from one demon cult or another, or that since he was old enough to care, Rupert couldn't read a newspaper or watch a telecast without wondering if it was something more then he what he was told.

Cold, simple hate rose in his stomach even though he would have thought by now that the rage would have abated by now. There he went, making judgments again. He knew better.

He knew that the anger was about as useful by itself as the despair.

Instead, it would be better to just focus on the effects of them to see them like he would view light when captured through cut crystals. His grandmother loved to take out the fine goblets sometimes, when she was troubled or frustrated, she seemed to see something in the way the light reflected and changed color that Rupert could never quite could. She seemed to hear something in the crisp ring of her knuckle on the glass that he didn't.

When asked what she saw or heard, she would fix him a simple gaze that was neither cold or pretentious and said, 'the view changes from where you stand.'

The house was no smaller then he remembered, but older and strange to the eyes. He felt older. Used.

It wasn't until he had knocked on the front door that he realized he hadn't changed since he got out of the hospital. It must have been a sight.

His jeans were dirtied, tight and may have at one time been black but was now somewhere between a shady green and a gray. They were shiny at the knees and shredded around his scuffed, duct taped boots. His shirt was bloodied. It wasn't his blood.

He tugged his coat closer to his frame, ignoring the smell of old cigarettes and Ethan. He should have shaved, gotten a haircut and changed his clothes. He should have made some attempt to look like the boy who had gone storming out of this house years before. The boy who had pushed his father into the dining room table, cracking the wood and tossing him back with a curse that was so nasty it burned his fingernails for two weeks after.

The door open and Rupert came face to face with a look of pure feral rage that was locked firmly behind a pair of horn-rimmed glasses and receding hairline.

Well, he thought idly as he stared down the look; at least he still looked liked a member of this family. "Hello father."

Loring Giles was a good four inches shorter then his son but stout; he had the ability of cowing Rupert with one fierce gaze from their mutual eyes. He was clean and pressed, everything in order from his brown hair smoothed back to the cuffs of his shirts, pinned and cuff linked despite the sweltering heat. His face registered neither shock nor surprise, but he had a look that would have chilled if it hadn't eviscerated.

And Rupert knew all about that brand of torture didn't he? It was his nickname, Ripper, wasn't it? Hadn't he indulged in all sorts of similar terrors? Strange it seemed, to be so unfamiliar now that it humbled him. "I…wrote…did you…"

Loring continued to study his son. His knuckles were turning white with the amount of strength he was using in merely gripping the door. Rupert waited for the door to break under his ferocity, _he_ waited to break under it. He felt so weak now, despite the fact Rupert had been so strong last time they met, in a way he still was; but he would not use that again. He couldn't.

"Fa…father…"

"I told you when you left, if you walked out, you would lose the right to call me that." Loring's voice was remote, not choked by any emotion. He was merely teaching a lesson. "Didn't I, boy?"

"I wrote." Rupert began again instead of responding, stammering to find the words. It felt like so many emotions, so many words were tumbling through him at the same time that he couldn't figure out which to use so he tried to use them all. His words got lost among themselves. "…I wrote…said I was…" He forced his eyes up, staring at him. His father who could stop anything; the very world if he chose to. He knew that. He had spent years hating Loring because of his power, because of their strength and then being both content to use his power in such a small limited way and for condemning his entire family to a life of passiveness and devotion to some archaic prophecy. "I said…I…"

"You were coming home." Loring supplied. Four words. That was all he had to say and all the words and questions Rupert had were summed up and answered. He may have been coming back, but he was not home.

Rupert froze. He thought of Ethan. He looked away from the unemotional gaze as if it burned. Everything burned. It was ripping him down the middle and he just wanted to back up and run.

His mother had appeared in the corner of his line of sight. Margot had her hands clapped over her mouth, a rosary wound tight through her fingers. She had aged decades in mere years; her entire head was gray from her hair to the pallor of her skin. Her body was shaking, and she was sobbing mutely into her hands. Twice she made a motion as if she wished to rise from the seat she had collapsed into, and make towards her son but one look towards her husband each time stopped her.

She always looked older then Loring, but stronger somehow. Rupert had never quite understood how she would submit so readily to his will, so unquestioningly until now. In his mind, he shifted the gaze. Trapped between Rupert and Loring must have been something like navigating Scylla and Charybdis; and Loring had never left her. He had never given her reason to fear him.

Rupert could feel just how dirty he must look to his parents, how tainted he must seem. He wondered if his father could _sense_ him: not that he was hungry, or tired, or frightened most of all; but truly sense him.

He wondered if he could see what his son had become, how the Dark had filled in all the holes he had been complaining about when he stormed out. He was completed now.  
            And idle thought crossed his mind, as he ventured one last look towards his parents- as he tried to tell them with his eyes how sorry he was, how desperately he wanted to come home and be home, how desperately he wanted to…be back; he wondered how he would be recorded in the journals. Would he be Rupert Giles…or Ripper?

"Rupert."

Turning back from his place on the last step, he became aware of his grandmother. Loring was behind his mother, giving her a fierce gaze that remained just as he had been, dispassionate but wild. He became aware right then just how strong his father must be, how strong he had to be. His magick was the only thing that could overtake him.

"…Grandmother." His voice was stuttering again, breaking slightly. He hadn't wanted to say goodbye to her; and had feared that she was gone. "I was…just…"

"Put your things in your room, and meet me in the study, Rupert." His grandmother returned, cutting off her grandson with her usual way. She was hurrying away from the main doors as she talked. "Your Etruscan was always better then mine, dear boy, and Heavens forbid your father help with any transliterations…" She turned back to him the moment he had stepped foot on the threshold. He wondered if he had released the breath he was holding loudly, or if his heart was bleeding across his face.

If his fatigue or guilt showed at all, his grandmother made no sign of it. She was clasping her own son's hand so hard that it looked like it was the only thing keeping Loring erect. His mother was still clutching her own hands in disbelief.

"Dear boy." She began, somewhat impatiently. "Hurry along. You are wasting light."

 Quietly, and not trusting his mind to reason or his voice to speak; Rupert pushed past his father and followed Edna Giles down the hallway as if she was leading him towards salvation. He was too cowardly to accept how true that was.


End file.
